The feeling of insight in problem solving is typically associated with the sudden realization of a solution that appears obviously correct (Kounios et al., 2006). Salvi et al. (2016) found that a solution accompanied with sudden insight is more likely to be correct than a problem solved through conscious and incremental steps. However, Metcalfe (1986) indicated that participants would often present an inelegant but plausible (wrong) answer as correct with a high feeling of warmth (a subjective measure of closeness to solution). This discrepancy may be due to the use of different tasks or due to different methods in the measurement of insight (i.e., using a binary vs. continuous scale). In three experiments, we investigated both findings, using many different problem tasks (e.g., Compound Remote Associates, so-called classic insight problems, and non-insight problems). Participants rated insight-related affect (feelings of Aha-experience, confidence, surprise, impasse, and pleasure) on continuous scales. As expected we found that, for problems designed to elicit insight, correct solutions elicited higher proportions of reported insight in the solution compared to non-insight solutions; further, correct solutions elicited stronger feelings of insight compared to incorrect solutions.

Several theories posit that creative people are able to generate more divergent ideas. If this is correct, simply naming unrelated words and then measuring the semantic distance between them could serve as an objective measure of divergent thinking. To test this hypothesis, we asked 8,914 participants to name 10 words that are as different from each other as possible. A computational algorithm then estimated the average semantic distance between the words; related words (e.g., cat and dog) have shorter distances than unrelated ones (e.g., cat and thimble). We predicted that people producing greater semantic distances would also score higher on traditional creativity measures. In Study 1, we found moderate to strong correlations between semantic distance and two widely used creativity measures (the Alternative Uses Task and the Bridge-the-Associative-Gap Task). In Study 2, with participants from 98 countries, semantic distances varied only slightly by basic demographic variables. There was also a positive correlation between semantic distance and performance on a range of problems known to predict creativity. Overall, semantic distance correlated at least as strongly with established creativity measures as those measures did with each other. Naming unrelated words in what we call the Divergent Association Task can thus serve as a brief, reliable, and objective measure of divergent thinking.

Despite the presumed ability of insight problems to elicit the subjective feeling of insight, as well as the use of so-called insight problems to investigate this phenomenon for over 100 years, no research has collected normative data regarding the ability of insight problems to actually elicit the feeling of insight in a given individual. The work described in this article provides an overview of both classic and contemporary problems used to examine the construct of insight and presents normative data on the success rate, mean time to solution, and mean rating of aha experience for each problem and task type. We suggest using these data in future work as a reference for selecting problems on the basis of their ability to elicit an aha experience.

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Perhaps it is no accident that “Eureka” moments accompany some of humanity’s most important discoveries in science, medicine, and art. Ideas often appear unexpectedly in the human mind, so we must possess some capacity for appraising the idea in order to use it efficiently. Here we describe an account where the feeling of insight plays this adaptive role by signaling that a new idea appearing in consciousness can be trusted, given what one knows. Consistent with this perspective, recent experiments show that feelings of Aha tend to accompany correct solutions to problems. However, we have also shown that an artificially induced Aha moment can make false propositions seem true, demonstrating that Aha moments can exert influence regardless of ground truth. Drawing on these and other findings, we contend that humans use feelings of Aha heuristically in order to appraise new ideas that appear in awareness. In other words, from the manifold thoughts and ideas appearing in our stream of consciousness, the feeling of insight draws attention to the ‘best’ ones. Usually the heuristic works, but like all mental shortcuts, it is error prone. In this paper we encourage research on insight to move beyond questions about where insight comes from, and into questions about what insights do and how they affect decisions, belief, and the appraisal of ideas. It also brings to the forefront the dangers of false insight moments and their relevance for future research and the current age of information.